In 1906 The National Arts Club celebrated its new headquarters on Gramercy Park with an exhibition of American paintings belonging to member and collector William T. Evans. A successful businessman and renowned collector, Evans, as the Club’s Art Committee chair, was instrumental in creating the Artist Life Membership Program and establishing the Exhibiting Artist Members Exhibition.

Jermaine Amuquandoh is a young artist who can be classified in the realm of Outsider, Naive and/or Visionary art. Jermaine had an interesting beginning to his burgeoning progress as a student participant in the Marta Valle High School exhibitions held here at The National Arts Club. His work repeatedly sold out.
Jermaine’s curiously elaborate mixed media paintings result in highly personal visions. Although from concrete inner city Brooklyn, when asked what his paintings are about he says they are “plants, they’re about nature, they’re alive….” which exemplifies the mystery of the inner psyche of an artist.

This exhibition
brings together a collection of experiential-based ideas and projects built
around the idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, an individual
and a society, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods.
Technology can be viewed as an instrument for artists to offer reflections on
the role of information in society; cultural mechanisms; the boundary between
the real and the virtual; and the use of mass media as instruments for
manipulation and control. Some of the works are inspired by the artists’ own
experiences and create an illusion of the individual taking on a paradoxical
and timeless sojourn into the ideal — an entirely “personal” space constructed
of inanimate objects from the past. Other works offer journeys through
imaginary epochs represented by classical forms, historical images and creative
associations, while additional works explore female identity through the artist
turning the camera on herself as a character for role playing in digital narratives.
The exhibition
explores artworks that are immersive, participatory, performative and kinetic,
all from the vantage point of the phenomenological experience. It is organized
in collaboration with CYLAND MediaArtLab and the Kolodzei Art Foundation.